The Upside of Exhaustion
by Aldora89
Summary: Threeshot. In which the captain suffers from sleep deprivation, and discovers an interesting fact about his first officer. Shameless fluffy K/S.
1. Chapter 1

Jim Kirk was tired; the kind of tired that made him feel like a senile old grandmother with acute arthritis. He staggered down the corridor on autopilot, only able to walk because he did it so much he could do it in his sleep.

Well, almost. He would have laughed at that thought, if his head didn't hurt so much.

_Damn Maloshans and their goddamn one-hundred five hour days._ Jim may have been mumbling something to that effect, because he got a few strange looks from ensigns as he passed them. _Yeah_, _let's see you act sane after negotiations like that_.

Finally he stumbled into his room with a single thought on his mind.

Bed.

Beds were soft and nice. Beds didn't ask anything, or demand anything, or drone on and on about stupid regulations, or make him sign stuff in too many places. Beds were the best invention in the history of ever.

Jim kicked off his boots and stripped out of his shirt as he made his way across the room. The darkness soothed his headache enough that the percussion section in his skull lost a few drummers. His shins bumped into his destination, and he felt his way toward the headboard, eyes half closed. He dragged the covers back and collapsed onto the mattress, sighing in rapture. He fumbled for the sheets, burrowed in, rolled over…

And found himself nose-to-nose with his first officer.

"Spock?" Jim blinked and squinted at him. He actually looked surprised, and Jim was having trouble focusing on him because he was so close, but it was most definitely Spock. "What're you doing here?"

Spock raised an eyebrow. "These are my quarters, captain."

Jim frowned and rubbed his eyes, but the image of Spock didn't go away. Slowly it occurred to him that the sheets weren't the right color, the pillow wasn't as fluffy as it should be, and the room was very warm. "Oh." He hesitated, because putting words together was really freaking hard. "How long have I been awake?"

"Approximately fifty-three point five seven hours."

"Ah." Jim thought about that for a second, then closed his eyes.

"Captain?" There was the faintest hint of uncertainty in Spock's voice. "Aren't you going to–"

"Too tired."

"But captain–"

"Shut up." Jim grumbled. "That's an order."

_Hey, it worked. _He smiled faintly to himself, and as he started to relax, he became aware of the delicious heat seeping into his sore muscles. He slid his hand under the covers, idly seeking the source.

"Mmmwarm." He muttered. "'S'that you?" He patted Spock's chest and sure enough, the heat was pouring off his skin, obvious even from a few inches away.

Spock jumped at the touch and abruptly sat up, shifting toward the far edge of the bed. "Captain, you are behaving irrationally."

"Come back. You're like one of those whachamacallits… a space heater." Ha. They _were_ in space. Jim chuckled sleepily.

"I think you would find your own quarters more comfortable."

"Nuh-uh." Jim nuzzled his head farther into the pillow. It smelled clean and a little spicy. Some kind of incense? "I like it here."

Silence for a minute, but Spock spoke up right before Jim drifted off. "I believe I have work to do."

"Fine, be that way." But he wasn't jostled around, even a good five seconds later, so he forced his eyes open in confusion to see that Spock was still there. "Why aren't you getting up?"

"I am not… decent."

That woke Jim up more than the dozen or so cups of coffee he had guzzled over the past few days. He frowned and peered up at Spock, and noticed that the Vulcan was clutching the blanket against his waist, staring at the wall. "What're you, naked or something?"

Spock said nothing.

Jim wasn't sure which he found funnier, the fact that his uptight first officer slept au naturale, or Spock's reaction to him finding out. He started to laugh hysterically and couldn't stop. _Hell, who needs alcohol when you can be tired?_

"I fail to see what you find so amusing."

By this point it seemed like Jim was talking to a dream. He recovered from his ridiculous giggle fit and sighed. "C'mon, I don't care." He gestured vaguely and almost hit himself in the nose. "Lie down already. I know you're tired too, and it _is_ your bed."

"Vulcans do not require–"

"'S'plenty of room. I crashed with Bones like this all the time at Academy. 'Cept he doesn't sleep in the nude…"

"Captain–"

"God damn, are all Vulcans such prudes, or is it just you? Lie down or I'll have you court marshaled for… dunno. For being a puritan."

Ok, _that_ took way to much effort. Now the headache was threatening an encore. Jim closed his eyes, and couldn't have opened them again if his life depended on it. He hovered on the edge of total oblivion, but was somehow still very aware of Spock's presence.

Then the bed moved, the blankets shifted, and the mattress dipped as Spock settled down beside him. Bit by bit that fantastic heat returned, curling around Jim like an embrace. He was out the next instant with a smile on his lips.

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**Didn't think my first post would be a silly, fluffy oneshot, but this plot bunny wouldn't leave me alone! XD**

**Might have to make this a two-parter... morning after, anyone? **


	2. Chapter 2

He was wandering in a desert that stretched as far as the eye could see. No water, no shade, not even a trace of a breeze, and it felt like he had been walking for hours already. Didn't these things have oases somewhere, or at least mirages? He would settle for a mirage at this point, even if he came to his senses with a mouthful of sand.

He had just crested the top of a dune when a sinister voice sounded from right behind him.

"Thought you could get away, did you?"

It was a camel with Bones' head, clutching a hypospray in its teeth.

That was weird, even by the standards of dream-land.

A dream. The sudden realization made the desert and the unholy chimera melt away, and Jim woke up with surprising ease. But he was still way too hot. The heat pressed in all around him, enough that breathing was more difficult than usual. The sheets underneath him were soaked with sweat.

He opened his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling, and noticed immediately that the bed – not his bed – had another occupant. That kind of thing was mildly alarming when he didn't remember taking anyone home. He turned his head slowly and gaped at the sleeping Vulcan next to him. The room got even hotter.

_Oh, right. _It all came back in a rush. The Malosha conference, that one diplomat with the lisping monotone, the day that never freaking ended. Mistaking Spock's room for his own in an exhausted daze.

Somehow his hand had worked its way under Spock's pillow. Well, at least they weren't spooning or something. He wondered if he could get up and duck out without disturbing his unlikely bedfellow, but Spock's face brought an unexpected halt to his plans. He looked _relaxed_. Spock was always so aloof, both on and off duty, that this peaceful version was nearly unrecognizable.

Jim put aside the discreet escape problem and idly started to examine Spock. He told himself it was for payback's sake; Spock was constantly studying everyone on the crew, whether or not they knew it, and had a habit of using it to fuel his subtle insults.

With Jim's arm providing the contrast, and the lights that were probably on an automatic timer, Jim could easily see the faint olive tones in Spock's skin. He had nice skin, now that Jim thought about it. Nice hair too, even with that silly Vulcan style. Jim let his gaze drift along Spock's chest and stomach, and it drifted a bit more.

The blanket was draped low on Spock's waist, so low that it brushed just under one hip before trailing off the bed behind him. Jim abruptly dragged his eyes back to Spock's face before they could wander any farther. There was no way in hell he had almost eye-raped his first officer. No siree.

He was just a little curious about the biology of Vulcans.

Then Spock stirred right on cue, as if he had a pervert alarm. Jim's heart pounded and he fixed his gaze on the ceiling, switching on his practiced innocent look. In his peripheral vision he saw Spock open his eyes and stare at him for a long moment. "'Morning." Jim said.

Spock lifted his head slightly and glanced above Jim's chest. "It is approximately fourteen hundred hours."

"Oh. Never mind, then." Jim frowned, and it occurred to him that he couldn't remember when the conference had finally ended. "How long…"

"Twelve point one four hours."

Jim couldn't resist. "What's five-hundred thirty three times eight-hundred sixty?"

"Four-hundred fifty-eight thousand–"

Jim was expecting an incredulous eyebrow quirk, not an answer. He held up a hand to cut Spock off. "I was just trying to make a point."

Spock shot him a strange look. "Your point escapes me, captain."

"That you act like a calculator."

And _there _was the eyebrow quirk. Jim grinned, and for a fraction of a second, he thought Spock was going to grin right back.

But suddenly Spock seemed to become aware of his current state of undress. In one swift motion he snatched the blanket and yanked it to his chin. He proceeded to stare at the corner of his pillow as though it were the most fascinating thing in the world.

"I said it last night and I'll say it again. Prude." Jim fought the urge to poke Spock in the chest. Why he had the urge to get all touchy with Spock in the first place was beyond him.

"Captain, I do not agree that desiring to maintain a certain degree of modesty qualifies me as a 'prude.'"

"Sounds like something a prude would say."

Spock opened his mouth to retort, then frowned and seemed to think for a moment. He peered at Jim reproachfully. "You are teasing me."

"Absolutely." And with that, Jim found himself wanting to pat Spock's shoulder. _Dammit, there will be no touching of the naked first officer! _He shifted and tried to untangle his feet to distract himself. Sometime during the night he had thrown off his half of the blankets, and they were bunched around his ankles. "Sorry I sweated so much."

Spock did that thing where he shrugged using only his eyes. "You have no control over your autonomic nervous system. If you had not done so, you would have overheated and gone into shock."

An uncomfortable silence ensued. Jim had experienced his fair share of strange situations, but so far this was trumping them all. It occurred to him that bridge duty together wouldn't be quite the same for weeks now, if ever. At least he was refreshed, and he didn't feel like killing the next Maloshan he saw. In any case, he had overstayed his welcome.

"So half a day, huh? And I didn't wake up once. That's the best I've slept in a long time." Jim shimmied to prop himself up against the headboard, getting ready to high-tail it out of there. "Maybe I should wander into your bed more often."

He honestly hadn't meant for it to sound like that, but it was too late; the awkward levels immediately shot up to critical, and Spock's shoulders seemed to stiffen in response. "Umm, I mean… you know." Smooth. He scrambled for an excuse and tried again. "It's just nice having someone around when... when you're sleeping."

_Especially you, _his brain added. Wait, what the hell was that? He quickly pushed the thought to the back of his mind. He got up before his mouth could do any more damage and fished his shirt off the floor, which turned out to be more tangled than the laws of physics could have predicted.

"I also slept well." Spock said after a minute, and paused. "But unlike you, I was awakened several times." There was something about his tone that was almost accusatory.

"How come?" Jim looked up from his battle with the shirt.

"You repeatedly... you were…" Spock trailed off and hesitated. Was it Jim's imagination, or were his ears turning green?

_Oh God, please let him say 'snoring.'_

"I believe the term is 'spooning.'"

_...Damn it._

_

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_**If you can spot the TOS reference, you get a cookie.**

**Also, thank you all so much for the lovely reviews! They make me do ridiculous little dances in my chair. Sorry to those who wanted sexytiems, but I had planned on keeping this T from the beginning. I'll put up something M eventually. ;)**


	3. Chapter 3

**You guys… you fed the plot bunny too much and it escaped from the cage! Now it's eating the furniture and making a mess.**

**So one more part, just because I have a history of getting carried away with these things. Then I'm moving on to other fics (probably full-blown slash instead of this teasing stuff).**

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Thus went The Incident, as Jim had come to refer to it in his head.

It was actually harder facing Bones than Spock. He was so used to telling his best friend everything that excluding such shenanigans made him feel like he was lying. It didn't help that for an unreasonable length of time, whenever he saw Bones, he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing because the first thing that came to mind was 'camel.' He also had more difficulty with Uhura than Spock. Every time he opened his mouth to ask for a com channel, silly and unprofessional questions did cartwheels in his head.

_So I think I got farther with your ex than you did; could you confirm?_

He thought he could die happy just from seeing the looks on everyone's faces.

But in general, he tried not to dwell on The Incident for the sake of the status quo he and Spock had developed over the past few months. Besides, he knew Spock sure as hell wasn't thinking about it, which was oddly comforting. Forget it ever happened and move on. He could handle that.

That was working out pretty well until the Dhros negotiations. It was just the standard mining rights stuff. Send in the _Enterprise_ to dazzle them a little, seal the deal, then back to exploration. It should have been easy too, because the planet was teetering on the brink of financial collapse.

But the terms that the Dhros outlined were at the absolute minimum for what the Federation would accept, and Jim wasn't content to settle. It didn't help that Spock stopped just short of undermining Jim whenever he threw his two cents in.

After over an hour with no progress, Jim couldn't take it anymore. Enough was enough. "We'll give you two hours to consider our offer, and we will accept nothing less." He motioned to Uhura, who cut the Dhros ambassadors off before they could protest. He tried to shape his frustration into something constructive before turning toward the science station.

"Mr. Spock." He did not just check out Spock's ass. There were only so many places to look when someone was facing away from you, was all.

"Captain?"

"Join me in the conference room for a minute."

He could feel the eyes of the bridge crew following them, and it was a relief when the door closed, and he could finally say what he had to without witnesses.

"A little support would have be nice in there." He crossed his arms. Maybe he wasn't old enough yet to pull off an air of stern disappointment, but damn if he wasn't going to try.

"Lending my support to a futile endeavor would be illogical."

"Futile? C'mon Spock, you know me."

Not so long ago Spock would have stared at him blankly, but now he knew exactly what Jim meant. "Even an individual of your extraordinary obstinance could not–"

"Who, me? Obstinate?" Jim interrupted. "Why Spock, you flatter me."

Spock choose to ignore that. "As far as they are concerned, the only terms are their original terms."

"And I'm telling you, we can get a better deal out of them. They need this treaty more than we do. We have leverage."

"That may be so, but the Dhros are not logical. They do not bargain."

"They will. We just have to sit back and let 'em sweat for awhile."

"The Dhros do not sweat." Spock said, his critical stare telling Jim off for not reading all billion or so mind-numbing pages in the debriefing.

_Neither do Vulcans_, Jim thought._ I wonder what that's like during_–

He shoved the notion aside with practiced ease before it could complete itself. His brain had been doing more and more of that lately, but he hadn't taken the time to figure out why.

"I just want to make sure the Federation doesn't get shortchanged."

"You have never displayed such single-minded mercantile proclivities before."

Jim threw up his hands. "Ok, you got me," He said, jaw clenched. "They're pushy, and they're rude, and I'll be damned if I let them win this."

"Your behavior is becoming overly emotional and erratic." Spock's tone was very deliberate, almost mocking. "Perhaps you are in need of rest." Jim gaped at him for a moment. So he _had _been thinking about it. Well if he wanted to get personal, two could play at that game.

"Maybe if you thought outside your little calculator-shaped box every now and then, you could understand why this is important."

Spock pretended to mull over Jim's statement, and it was painfully obvious he was pretending; in fact, it bordered on self-parody. "No, I do not believe I could ever comprehend such irrationality."

"I'm irrational?" Jim snapped. "You know, if you turned down the temperature in your room to something less than capable of frying an egg, you could sleep in pajamas like a normal person and better preserve your _modesty._"

_And I wouldn't have to be distracted all the time by imagining you shirtless at inopportune moments. Like right now._

"Perhaps if you had not worn regulation uniform pants to bed and insisted on unseemly physical contact, the temperature would not have bothered you." There it was again, the ear-blush thing.

Jim's mind floundered, trying to conjure up a comeback better than 'I was tired,' which was almost impossible when he was fighting to dismiss weird mental images at the same time.

"Umm… captain?"

_Oh, shit_.

They both turned to face the wide-eyed ensign standing at the door, clutching a PADD to her chest.

Jim sorted through several possible responses, including 'ha, we had you going there, didn't we,' 'that Mr. Spock, he loves to kid,' and the classic 'it's not what it looks like.' None of them were convincing enough, so he gave up and settled for, "Yes, ensign?" Maybe if he scared her enough, she wouldn't start rumors.

"I can wait, it's just–"

"_Yes_, ensign?" Jim snatched the PADD away from her. "You need a signature? Here." He scribbled hastily on the line.

"Thank you sir, but–"

"Yes, yes. Move along." She had already fled, and Jim took a moment to think about what he was trying to gain from this discussion when Spock, the Dhros, and himself were all equally bullheaded.

He was mad, sure. But he took a deep breath, and the worst of it passed, because even though he'd never admit it, he loved every minute of this.

He loved it when Spock challenged him, argued with him, pushed him to his limits and then pushed a little more. He loved that with just enough patient harassment, he could drag Spock down to his level. He loved how Spock could make him anxious or at ease with a single look. Call him an intellectual masochist, but he loved Spock…

…Spock's mind. He loved Spock's mind. _Maybe I am a little tired_.

Jim shook his head and turned back to Spock to find that his first officer's eyebrows were nearly hidden by his hair. The corners of his mouth were upturned dangerous close to smile territory. "And just what are you so smug about?"

"Captain," Spock said, and nodded toward the door, "that was the original Dhros mining treaty."

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**The End (for real this time).**

**simplyelena: Oh wow, thanks for pointing that out. That's what happens when you write stuff at 2:00 AM!**

**Veglma: Not quite, but you hit on it by accident. The biology line is from "Amok Time." Spock is trying to explain his "condition" (i.e. must have lots of sex or die), and because he's Spock and it's the 1960s, they dance around it. So Spock is like "something something Vulcan biology" and Jim is like "you mean... the biology of Vulcans?" You think this fic is awkward, you ain't seen nothing. XD**

**In fact, if anyone reading this hasn't seen it, go and watch it. Like now. It's on Youtube, early season 2. And do pay close attention to the subtext, because darlings, it's FABULOUS.**


End file.
